When I first spotted this Pied-bill Grebe in the Valley Water, it was amidst a flotilla of Canada Geese.A week later it was the sole bird on the water.You can see why it’s sticking around.

*
Trump’s pick for National Security Advisor is a real piece of work: ignorant, power-mad, and conspiratorially deranged. I wrote about how the National Security Advisor position has evolved over the years; it’s now vital, especially for an impulsive ignoramus like Trump. But the man he picked couldn’t be worse. Flynn was so incompetent a general he was fired. Since then he’s taken to publicizing his nasty bigotry and evil-minded stupidity on the right-wing yahoo circuit. As such, he has helped spread the lunatic fringe nonsense that a pizza parlor in Washington, DC is the location of a Hillary Clinton-run child sex slave operation. An unbalanced person (i.e., a Trump voter) who believed this absurdity went to the business (which has been beset by similar lunatics) this past weekend to “rescue” the fictional child sex slaves, actually firing his gun inside the place. Flynn is a dangerous fool who inspires psychopaths. Which is I guess why Trump wants him for the job…

Great Blue Heron.This bird had been hanging out in Green-Wood deep into the autumn. It had got quite used to passersby, in fact several people were concerned about its condition because it was “just standing there.” I last saw it 11/25, when I took these pictures; I haven’t seen it the last two weekends. Perhaps the bird fled after hearing about Trump’s EPA pick, a professional science-denier who, curiously, looks like another dead fish of an ideologue, James G. Watt. He was Reagan’s wrecker at Interior.

This Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) female was flying directly towards me across the Crescent Water when suddenly she freaked out. A Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) sped overhead, arrowing towards her. There was much shouting by the Kingfisher, who loudly went hither and yon as the foiled Coop parked itself in a Sweetgum. I see Cooper’s in the air a lot more than I see them perched. They can be quite flighty, barely perching for long when they’re on the winged hunt.This one, though, stuck around long enough for me to get some pictures.

While circling the hawk, I noticed these wet pellets on a bench. There sure look fishy, don’t they?I think the Kingfisher perched on the back of the bench and coughed up these scaly, bony hairballs.

Speaking of hairballs: how to deal with the reflexive liar Trump, who uses the big-lie strategy every day.

I don’t see raptors single every day here in Brooklyn, but it sure seems like it averages out that way. Take this weekend. Yesterday morning, before I was fully awake, I looked out the window and saw a Cooper’s Hawk above a confusion of pigeons over towards 4th Avenue. After breakfast: there was a male American Kestrel perched on the tall antenna above the intersection of 40th Street and 5th Avenue. He was flushed by a pair of crows, who flew over to St. Michael’s, which is where I often see Peregrines. This antenna is usually festooned with Starlings; there was a Red-tail on it Friday and a Merlin has been spotted up there as well.

Later in the morning, a Red-shouldered Hawk flew by the apartment! That was a first. I’ve seen them before (here’s a pretty good picture from Croton Point) but not from my view up here on the Harbor Hill Moraine.

The Red-shouldered was heading away by the time I got my binoculars on it, probably the worst view of a bird you could ask for, but over the park it wheeled around, showing me the tell-tale striped tail and “windows” on the wings. That makes for seven species of raptor I’ve seen from my apartment window: Red-tailed Hawk, Peregrine, Merlin, Kestrel, Cooper’s Hawk, Osprey, and now Red-shouldered Hawk.

Later in the day, I actually got out of the house. In Green-Wood, I had excellent views of a Cooper’s that went head-first after a female Belted Kingfisher, who screamed bloody murder while escaping. A Red-tailed Hawk ambled by as the Cooper’s parked itself in a Sweetgum, as pictured above. Later, a Kestrel landed on the neo-gothic pile of Green-Wood’s main entrance. This was also a male, so could have been the same bird I’d seen six hours, and 15 blocks, earlier.

On Saturday, I saw Red-tailed Hawks over Sunset Park and in Green-Wood, where I also had a Cooper’s overhead, and a Merlin jumping between three trees.

Everybody could probably do with some Bubo virginianus right about now, right? (Excepting the night mammals, of course!) Spotted this one today when a fire-alarm of White-breasted Nuthatches alerted me to SOMETHING being up.

Anas rubripesAmerican Black Ducks are year-’round birds, but they are now sharing the harbor with our wintering Buffleheads, Gadwall, Wigeon, and Red-breasted Mergansers. Soon, loons and grebes should be seen as well. There’s been a Humpback Whale in the harbor and up the Hudson, too, lately, although this blogger hasn’t seen a tail of it yet.Wearing a piece of the sea… or is it the sky?